Relative Courtship
by Servant Gabrielle
Summary: The romantic tale of everyone's favorite cousins. Incest.
1. Chapter 1

Warnings: Yaoi, Incest, Shota, Anal, and all that good stuff.

Pairings: Tohma x Suguru (cousin love!) And "hints" (very, very big hints) of Hiro x K.

**Disclaimer: I do not own these very naughty boys... very, very naughty boys. **

A/N: I've been in love with this pairing ever since I first saw it typed before my eyes. Unfortunately, none of the stories about the two cousins were every finished, so I'm writing this to keep myself busy while I wait for endings that may never come. I hope everyone enjoys this as much as I am. And if you can figure out how the title makes any sense with the story... well, you're one step ahead of me.

**Relatively Courtship**

**Chapter One**

This day had been one gigantic headache for Suguru. Not that every other day wasn't filled with pain behind his eyes, for they were. He was out of aspirin from this week alone. As his long fingers massaged his temple, he added several bottles of pain reliever to his mental shopping list.

To start the morning, he had arrived just on time, he did so every day. It was as if he could never be late. His internal clock woke him promptly a five each morning, and once the 'fifty-nine' became a double zero on the alarm clock beside his head, chocolate eyes were open and there was no returning to slumber and dreams.

By 5:10 he was at his keyboard, warming up his fingers with scales and etudes written for just such occasions. His fingers knew their exercise routine by each of their little hearts, giving Suguru's mind the time it needed to fully awaken. By the last note of the final song the teen was fully alert. After playing came the daily hygienic routines, followed closely by a minimalist's breakfast; a single slice of lightly toasted bread and a few gulps of chilled water. Then it was off to work, to which Shindou had been rather late. Their rehearsal had been nothing more than endless repetition of three measure phrases, Shuichi couldn't remember any of his lyrics.

To make the day 'oh so much better' K-san decided to check on their progress. It entailed of playing their new song, or beginning to play it, Shindou forgetting the words, yet again, the whole band having to stop, then Suguru realizing the truth of how miserably they were failing, several bullets and a grenade later. The whole fiasco ended with the group consensus that the day would be wasted if they kept as they were, Shuichi running home to his darling Yuki Eiri, and Fujisaki finding himself alone inside the white-walled studio. K and Nakano had apparently gone for a drink together. The offer had been extended to Suguru; more out of guilt that he was alone than their desire to have him with them. He declined, naturally, as, not only was he underage, but he found alcohol to be quite unappetizing. Being alone was to the keyboardist's liking at the moment, maybe his headache would even disappear, as his bandmates had managed to.

No part of Suguru moved beside his hands, his fingers coming to rest on familiar plastic. He hardly ever left the square cell around his keyboards. It usually wasn't necessary to expend energy that could be used to play a few minutes more; there was an arrangement to begin, and several to improve here and there. He had his work laid out before him, but his concentration wouldn't stay. The pain in his forehead would not leave, even though there was no shattered silence, killed by a bubbling pink-haired singer and a wailing guitar.

He wished he had gotten more sleep. The teen should have been in bed by eleven, instead of two in the morning. It was proving too difficult to focus on the serious music, Fujisaki found his hands playing notes that were not his own. Music flowed from his synthesizer that belonged to his competition.

He could always deny it, he was alone, no one would be there to point out his mistake. It was his secret to keep, and a secret he intended to keep it. His secret was much larger than merely playing one song that was not his own; it had begun with the first time his cousin had given him a piano lesson. At his younger age, his feelings had merely been the normal idol worshiptry that youngsters felt for someone older, but Suguru hadn't grown out of his feelings for his cousin, rather said feelings had grown beyond him.

As Nittle Grasper's music flowed from the synthesizer, the keyboardist closed his eyes. Fantasies and desires were instantly conjured in his mind, a certain blond cousin was lightly running gloved hands over Suguru's body. The music swelled in a wild crescendo, pounding in his head, driving his mind wild with desire, but bringing with it the splitting pain that had never really left his forehead.

Suguru never showed any signs, physically, from practicing; at concerts he remained as pale as ever, hardly breaking a sweat by the time he was walking off stage. However, his cheeks now became flushed as his imagination continued to torment him. His breathing became shallow gasps and a fine glistening film of moisture appeared on his skin, yet his fingers continued to press the black and white plastic beneath them as if by their own accord. His headache was growing steadily, as was something else, about halfway towards his toes.

Suguru had been wrong in his assumptions, in thinking himself to be alone. It would seem too obvious at this point to simply state that he was not the only keyboardist in the studio.

Tohma Seguchi, president of NG Records was standing in the open doorway and across the room from Suguru. Through the sound-proof glass, his eyes never left his cousin and the signature smile never left his lips. It was the same mask that he wore around his house, the one he used when doing business, the very same he maintained when dealing with his musicians, bandmates, even the smile shown to millions of fans in magazines, newspapers and on stages across the country. Some thought the legendary keyboardist had smiled in such a superficial manner for so long his face had forgotten how to form any other expression. Only the musician himself ever saw something different. It was his other self that he didn't like, the one that no one knew. There was a reason he hid that self; a reason for the perpetual falsely upturned lips. Tohma knew that no one would like his unseen side, he would be rejected, hated, and shoved away by those who said they loved him. That was the reason for his well kept secret.

Green eyes took in everything about the younger cousin, from the pink in his cheeks to the bead of perspiration that gently made its way downward, like a trickling creek just beginning to form after a summer shower. The president's eyes followed the little rivulet as it outlined his cousin's high cheek bones, then traversed the plain below each protrusion to duck under his chin. It reached the musician's pale neck and dribbled downwards. Only when his sight of the droplet was thwarted, as it disappeared behind the collar of a black shirt, did his eyes move back to the boy's face, catching a swift pink tongue as it darted out to wet parched lips.

If there was one time Tohma wanted himself to forget his mask, it was when he was with his cousin. He wanted Suguru to know the true him, the one behind the false smile and black gloves.

How many times had he thought of his younger cousin, how many days had he sat behind his desk, allowing fantasies to dance through his mind and how many nights had pleasant dreams of the keyboardist kept him company until his alarm woke him? Too many.

Seguchi's attention was pulled to his cousin as the boy's music, or rather his own, ended abruptly.

Suguru sank to his knees, resting his pounding head upon the synth before him, ending the song in a final chord of cacophony. His headache was no better than before, if anything now worse, and all he could think about was that man. The very same man who's fault it was that the boy was in this state and the one who happened to be his cousin.

"Damn..." he sighed, "Tohma why do you make me feel this way?"

Suguru hadn't intended for there to be a reply to his question, but he was startled when a cloth-covered hand brushed against his cheek and an all too familiar, all too real voice replied.

"Make you feel what way, cousin?"

Instantly the younger musician was standing, ready to turn and run from the last person he every wanted to be asked that question from. He was blushing now, his cheeks must have rivaled Shuichi's hair, if not an actual strawberry. He had to think fast, there had to be some excuse for everything his cousin had seen, but the problem was: how much had Tohma witnessed?

While Suguru was busy stuttering away a doubtful excuse, Tohma brought his hands to rest upon either side of his cousin's face.

"Do I make you want to do this?" With those words the blonde touched his lips to his cousin's, lightly pressing skin to skin for a few moments before pulling back and finding the boy's shock-widened brown eyes, "Because you drive me to."

Tohma softly caressed Suguru's flushed skin, then removed his hands from their frame around his cousin's face. The president of NG records walked briskly out of the studio, leaving a silent musician staring after him with fingers lightly touching his pink lips.

To... be... continued...

Review or I'll kill a character off in each new chapter!


	2. Chapter 2

Pairings: The same as the first chapter.

Warnings: M for later chapters. Yaoi, Incest, Shota, and the rest (see chapter one for more).

**Disclaimer: Incest is the best, and if I owned them, every character would be with their relatives! (I really hope I'm just kidding, really, really hope!).**

**Chapter Two**

A few days time passed and Suguru was, again, the only musician from his band left in the recording studio. Yuki had stolen Shuichi, or his 'darling little Shu-chan' as the author had been, grudgingly, forced to call him in order to complete the singer-napping. Hiro had been marched out of the recording studio at gunpoint, with K saying something about a 'bad boy needing some punishment', and once again the keyboardist was left to himself; alone and with the question 'why me?' on one track repeat in his head.

Nothing further had happened with the head of the studio, and Suguru had dismissed the 'incident' as a hallucination due to his poor sleeping habits; but just in the event that he was wrong, the keyboardist avoided his cousin to the best of his ability. It was with a great pain to his weary brain that Suguru thought of his boss. His head pounded when his mind turned again to the feeling of his cousin's lips on his own, or replayed the words his relative had said to him in that soft and breathy voice.

The quiet of the studio only helped to enhance the eternal rush of blood too and from his head, each heartbeat thudding softly in an infinitely loud sounding of a drum in his ears. Another day, another headache. Putting the pages of lead covered music on top of his previously occupied chair Suguru stood, stretching his locked muscles. The motion of standing only helped to awaken his snoozing limbs, the teen reached his arms towards the ceiling and arched his back with feline liquidity. The stretch was quick and soon he walked out the door of the studio, intending to buy a cold drink to, hopefully, placate the growing pain in his temples. He did not bother to close the door.

With a metallic clinking the coins sank into the bottom of the machine, landing atop the already accumulated change, while Suguru pressed the plastic button; no second thoughts. The drink dropped with a thud, waiting for its buyer to stoop and take it from its previous mechanical prison. The teen collected his chosen beverage and pressed the chilled can against his pale forehead turning the one hundred eighty degrees needed to return to his music.

The about-face brought Suguru in front of the one cousin he did not want to see in the near future, or the present for that matter. He lowered the drink from his forehead as several options ran through his intelligent mind. Most were being rejected because they involved running and the only direction there was to run was right into Tohma, unless Suguru could manage to run up one of the walls, do a back flip over the older man's head and then land mid-stride and sprint madly away before his cousin had time to react: not very likely in this situation. He could always hurl his drink at his boss and hope to escape: not very practical at this time either.

Suguru's eyes widened as a black clothed hand was placed on his shoulder, preventing him from running away, Seguchi must be able to read minds. The light haired man slowly moved towards the darker, his other hand finding the sweating palm of his cousin and lacing gloved fingers with naked ones. Tohma brought their lips together for a kiss; a second kiss.

Suguru didn't know what to do when he felt his cousin's flesh touch his own. This was his second kiss; or did it even count as a true kiss if it was a relative bestowing it? He was slightly confused when he felt Tohma's tongue lightly trace his lips, gently outlining his closed mouth. Before he could become embarrassed by the situation, or more than he already was, the older keyboardist drew back, though keeping his gentle hold on the teen's hand. Tohma squeezed it lightly, looking for a reaction from the perplexed musician standing before him. The drink fell from his fingers, hit the floor with a thud, rolling slightly on the tile.

Suguru's stomach began to flutter, he had no idea of what to do in this instance. His nervousness grew steadily as seconds flew by with no sound between the two of them.

"You've been avoiding me Suguru," Tohma said quietly, dispelling the tensing atmosphere.

"I... What am I supposed to say Seguchi-san?" like his cousin, Suguru was never one for beating around the bush, as the saying was said. The teen was confused. There was too much to this situation; society whispering the too many wrongs, his heart telling him about the rights. Was there anything right at the moment? Suguru hoped there was, he truly did. His heart increased and decreased its drumming with each metronomic breath that entered his lungs.

"Why don't we leave this nosey building, it appears that the walls have little pink ears. I don't think I paid the contractors for those." The blond keyboardist smiled slightly, his face becoming a tad less marble like, "Ryu, come out from behind that door, Kuma too."

Pouting at having been discovered by his friend, Ryuichi and his ever present plush companion hesitantly entered the presence of the cousins. Suguru had quickly shaken his hand loose from Tohma's hold.

"Tohma, it was all Kuma! I swear! I told him it was a bad hiding place for hide-and-seek, but he didn't listen-" But the singer was silenced before he could continue on in his rambling apology.

"It's alright Ryu, just what did you see?"

"I didn't see anything, it was Kuma who peeked. He says he saw you giving Sug-chan your boy cooties. He said it was wrong, but I told him it wasn't because Sug-chan was a boy too, so it wouldn't matter that he was getting boy cooties! Kuma wouldn't listen, tell him Tohma! Tell him that it's alright for boys to share boy cooties!"

Nittle Grasper's keyboardist sighed in an over-exasperated manner, dramatizing his conversation with the plush pink rabbit, "Kuma, Ryu is right. Remember Shu-chan? He shares his boy cooties all the time with Yuki. It's not wrong, just what people who like each other do. Now that that is set straight-" This time Tohma was interrupted in his speech by Ryu saying that Kuma had said something mean about 'Shu-chan' and Yuki and causing the blond to head into further, child-ized explanation.

His cousin was an outstanding actor, holding a conversation with a stuffed animal with a completely serious face and intelligence still in his voice. Suguru was impressed, but it raised questions about Tohma's costume and mask; the mask that was in place at every encounter.

"Now Ryu, remember, you can't tell anyone about this, and don't let Kuma trick you into telling. It's a secret."

"Sure Tohma! Kuma can't get the best of me! See you! Buh-bye Sug-chan! Don't let big old Tohma steal all your boy cooties!" The singer winked and, with a scampering of two legs, two arms, Suguru's rescued drink, and a plush rabbit, ran down the hallway and turned out of sight around a corner. A scream was heard as the 'child' apparently walked right into his searching playmate.

The smile almost dropped from Tohma's face as he turned back to his cousin. He was close to letting his precious mask slip off, but with a little effort keep it in place. Dealing with Sakuma was indeed a trial.

Suguru was blushing slightly, the cause being Ryuichi's last little comment; not exactly the best fodder for a teenage mind. He startled when he felt the gloved hand take his again, the fingers lacing perfectly between his own.

"Do you have anything you need from the studio before we leave?" The soft voice spoke again.

"Yes... my music is on my synthesizer, and I left my coat there too."

Tohma pulled Suguru along by their joined palms. Suguru was afraid, terrified in truth, of someone spotting them. Looking at his cousin, one would never think the blond to be any different. His mask was cemented in place, the slight smile showing he was prepared to deal with any one. However, Tohma was scared as well, though he knew it could easily be explained out of the mind of any onlooker; the right words and two cousins holding hands was ordinary. Still on a basic level, the older man was enjoying the thrill of doing something different, of allowing a small part of his assumed character to be broken. It was not a normal thing for these two cousins to walk down the halls of NG hand in hand.

When the two reached the studio, the door was closed, unlike how Suguru had left it. Both disregarded this, one assuming that a passing employee had shut it, the other that a certain child-like singer had crashed into it. Tohma opened the door, pushing down on the silver colored handle and pulling it towards himself. He then briskly walked into the studio, followed by the teen attached to his hand.

If only the cousins had paid attention to the 'in use' light above the door, for the room was indeed being used, a certain golden-haired manager and brunette guitarist had returned, though their business was not for the success of Bad Luck.

The two were engaging in a lip-locked battle, Hiro with his rear planted on Suguru's synthesizer and K planted firmly against him. While the two dueled with pointed tongues, the keyboard stand groaned and moaned beneath their combined weight. Tohma coughed once, an attempt to alert the two men snogging on his cousin's synth, but the busy couple was too... busy. To get their attention once and for all, the keyboard stand lost its strength and broke with a crack, sending the synthesizer to form an American, Japanese and plastic sandwich on the hardwood floor.

Several strains, cracks, crunches, groans, moans, and 'ouches' later the two on the 'once-was' synthesizer noticed their boss and fellow musician standing there. In an instant both parties realized that: Suguru's keyboard was destroyed, and the two keyboardists were holding hands.

K was the first to return to his senses, a grin implanting itself to his lips as he stood and then offered a hand to his flattened lover. Suguru winced as he watched the bits and pieces of his synthesizer scatter from their clinging hold on Hiro's clothing to the floor. Both parties stared at each other, waiting for one to back down from the mutual silence competition.

Suguru cracked first, violently pulling his hand from his cousin's and moving to kneel beside the totaled instrument. He stared at the broken plastic frame, the fragments of metal strewn across the floor beside it, the inner mechanics, the blood and organs of the machine spewed outwards. The teenager saw red, his synthesizer, his precious, custom made, once of a kind, irreplaceable, and favorite keyboard, that had been a gift to him when he first started playing was in an irreversible horror before his eyes. How could they?

The young keyboardist was on his feet, anger infecting and ravaging his body. He raised his hand to hurt someone, only pausing to consider which guilty culprit to maim first. Thankfully, for the lives of the lovers, Seguchi grabbed the teen's hand and began to drag him from the studio. Before exiting the room entirely the president of NG gave one last smile to the men left behind. It was clear enough now that, even those who didn't know Tohma well, would see that the man was furious. His eyes radiated anger as he stared at his employees, but the smile was as perfectly in place as it always was, though added to the lack of feeling in his voice and the raw emotion in his eyes, it made for an eerie facade.

"This is to be cleaned up, gentlemen, and you will apologize to my cousin," the ultimatum was stated, the underlying threat of an early grave, or an unplanned retirement, quite clear to those having the order directed at them. With a wave too cheerful not to be considered creepy, Tohma left the room.

K and Hiro glanced at each other, then at the door to make sure the cousins were gone.

"Did you see they were holding hands!"

To be continued...


	3. Chapter 3 Part 1

Pairings: Mmm... Cousin-cest! (Tohma x Suguru)

Warning: Shounen-ai/Yaoi, Incest, Shota... I can't even remember what the rest of them were.

**Disclaimer: Yes, I don't own Gravitation... which means I don't get to hug Yuki whenever I want, or jam with Hiro and Shuichi, or go on a manhunt with K, or blow up K with Rage's bazooka, or jump on Tohma every time he walks around a corner, or color with Ryuichi, or get Tatsuha drunk, or drag Suguru into the shower with me or... Ok, point being, they're not mine. sob**

**Chapter Three -  
****The Five Stages of Grief  
****Part One: Denial**

Tohma ushered his cousin into the elevator at the end of the hallway, and as the doors closed with a ding, pressed the disc marked in gold embossing for the ground floor. Suguru didn't move.

Actually, the teen wasn't showing any sign of life other than the constant intake and exhale of air, signified by the rise and fall of his chest; barely visible beneath his emerald green sweater. It was rather thin for a sweater, hardly meant to give Suguru any warmth or protection from the elements, rain being one of them...

But Suguru didn't stir, he didn't speak, nor did he even relocate his gaze from the metallic doors before him. His silence worried the blond; the lack of emotion on his young face was eerily familiar.

"Suguru are you... alright?" Tohma asked, unsure of what was happening in the mind of the petrified keyboardist.

"I'm fine." Short and sweet; the teen used the traditional youthful methods to try and force an adult to get the hint that they don't want to be social at the moment: use very short sentences, even smaller words, one syllable only; and a tone that does not make for an easy continuation of the conversation.

Fine never meant fine; the dictionary would do better to put in another definition stating how fine stood for absolutely not fine most of the time. Tohma realized that; it was his job, after all, to read people like cheap paper back novels bought at a dollar a piece.

"I'm positive K-san and Nakano-kun will replace your keyboard-"

"What keyboard?" Suguru's hand twitched slightly, pulled by an invisible thread a millimeter in the air before being dropped again, "I-I don't know what you're talking about Seguchi-san."

Before Tohma could ask his cousin what he meant with his seeming, self-imposed amnesia, the doors to the elevator opened, releasing the occupants to the world once again. Tohma walked briskly out, losing the one-sided grip he had on the teen's hand. He had hoped that Suguru would be following him when he glanced back in the direction he had left from. The president of NG turned just in time to see the ruthless doors begin to close, about to imprison his stony cousin in their cocoon.

Suguru was kilometers away from fine.

At a very un-business like pace Tohma rushed, or rather walked a tad faster, back to the elevator, arriving as the doors once again met and embraced.

Tohma sighed and pressed the circular button resting on a gold bed to the right of the lift, which promptly sprung to life with an orange light. Then he waited, three seconds passed, then five, six, seven, eight, nine... Tohma's foot began to tap slightly within his dark shoes; though the twitching was invisible to any eye lacking x-ray vision. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and one gloved hand brushed several strands of blond hair from one side of his forehead to the other. Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-th- the doors opened. There stood Suguru, exactly as Tohma had left him: separate from the present time and place.

Tohma spoke with a soft voice, not soft with anger or rage as it tended to mean when lacking volume, but gentle with compassion and underlying worry, "Come along Suguru, let's take you home."

The older man lightly clasped the teen's hand and guided him from the elevator and through the lobby. Anyone who saw them pass could clearly understand the carefully chosen mask upon their employer's face: 'I don't want to talk to you, so don't bother talking to me'. Two hundred and thirteen strides and two hundred fifty-one faltering steps later the pair of relatives stood in the drizzling rain outside their workplace.

"And to think, the sky was a beautiful blue when I last left it," Tohma said lightly to his no longer listening companion.

...To be continued at a later date. (Meaning: Hopefully the next part will be up tomorrow!)

Parting A/N: Looks like this chapter will have five parts.


	4. Chapter 3 Part 2

Pairings: Tohma x Suguru (I have no witty comments to put here, so come up with your own for once. I'm an author, not a substitute for one's own imagination!)

Warning: Shounen-ai/yaoi, shota, incest... I would hope that everyone knows them by now.

**Disclaimer: Nope, you guessed it! They're not mine... but... in my mind they are!**

**Chapter Three -  
****- The Five Stages of Grief  
****Part Two - Anger**

If Tohma had let go of Suguru's hand, the teen, the lost puppy would have stood rooted to the spot he was left. The rain, which had been not much more than a light downpour for a few minutes, had ended but the clouds remained in their foreboding garments of grey, threatening to once again shower the people with their tears.

The rain had only had a minor effect on Tohma, his coat being too thick to be penetrated by the water and only the fur lining, its collar, now showed signs of wetness. However, in Suguru's case, his sweater had swallowed as much water as it could, retaining the moisture like a green sponge and slowing the teen as he walked after his cousin.

Suguru's apartment was not far from the NG building, merely a few blocks to the West. It had seemed the least expensive way to live, as the teen could easily walk to work every day. Though, legally, Suguru was not old enough to own his own apartment there had been ways of walking around this uncovered manhole in the middle sidewalk. Of course the place was leased to the famous Tohma Seguchi. It was also being paid for by the blond musician, a gift to the young Fujisaki for joining NG Records.

As they were walking, the gears in Suguru's mind, which had previously been jammed by a fly dumb enough to meander between the metal death traps, crushing the poor pest into a splatter of chitin and blood, finally managed to rid themselves of the blockage created by said mess and began to turn once more. All the force, all the momentum that had been withheld and prevented was now, suddenly, released in a flood of thought.

The only warning Tohma had was a slight tremor, perceived through their joined hands. The teen blinked. About half a block from the apartment building Suguru stopped walking. Tohma felt the grip on his own hand tighten before the manual contact was lost.

"Suguru what-"

"Those bastards."

As Seguchi turned he noticed two things. The first was the ghostly lack of color in Suguru's skin. For seconds was the demonic darkness in the chocolate-colored eyes. The features that could have been called cute when the boy acted his age, attractive when he was serious and slightly unnerving when he stole Tohma's mask held a new gleam: cold, rage, death. Suguru's eyes told the true story, even if his iced face betrayed nothing.

Tohma may not have known the events in his cousin's mind before, during the period of halted thought process, but now the ideas were clear as crystal: murder.

Suguru's voice was steady as he spoke, icicles clung to each chilly syllable, breaking off from their overhang to stab their wicked needle points towards the sidewalk and shatter into glass-like glitter at the end of each curtly annunciated work, "I'm going to kill them."

After the five terms were spoken, the teen turned to revisit the recently departed from NG building. All the fury in his mind thrust upon his young body resulted in a violently executed turn, leading to a predictable splash.

If Suguru hadn't just uttered a death threat, if he hadn't already been soaking wet and chilled considerably, and if he hadn't looked like he was about to cry, Tohma would have laughed. His cousin sat in the middle of a puddle, an adorable 'how-did-I-end-up-down-here' expression present on his youthful face. The blonde didn't laugh, however; he did offer Suguru a cloaked hand, pulling the teen from his shallow lake and preventing him from drowning; Suguru couldn't swim, a scarcely known fact kept as a skeleton in the closet by his elder cousin.

"Are you alright Suguru?" The blonde's other hand gently removed a few of the dark strands plastered wetly to the adolescent's forehead.

"Yes," vehemently Fujisaki replied, whether he was filled with rage or bitter from embarrassment was an enigma; most probably a compound of both elements.

Tohma couldn't stop himself, he chuckled at the sopping wet puppy, "Come on, we're almost there."

Ignoring the unimportance of being told the distance to his own residence, Suguru scowled, "Why the laugh Seguchi-san?"

The blond cousin smiled. It was almost sincere, so close to breaking the mold, "You can't see how cute you look right now."

Suguru 'hmph'd and glared at his cousin, '_Maybe if I sacrifice the lives of Nakano-san and K-san I will get my synth back_,' he thought sinisterly.

As the dark haired teen plotted, schemed, and came close to making a pact with the devil, he shivered.

To be continued...


	5. Chapter 3 Part 3

Pairing: Tohma x Suguru. Those bad boys.

Warning: Shounen-ai/yaoi, Incest, Shota... just keep nodding and I'll talk nonsense at you.

**Disclaimer: I don't own them, and I don't own the food product used in this chapter.**

A/N: Yes, this is out much sooner than ever before. The truth is, I actually got inspiration and decided to write. I also can't wait to do the final part of this chapter, (all the chapters are my children, I just love some more than others) so I want to write quickly (but well, don't worry!) Thanks for the reviews!

**Chapter Three - **

**- The Five Stages of Grief**

**Part Three - Bargaining**

The door to the apartment shut quietly, the cause being that Tohma had rescued the wood from its sure-to-happen abuse at the hands of its daily resident. The door thanked the keyboardist for the gentle closing.

"You look cold, why don't you shower, I'll fix us something to eat for dinner. If you need help stripping out of those wet clothes, don't hesitate to ask," Tohma's voice was soft as he commanded Suguru around his own apartment, the hinting phrase seeming as normal a thing to say as asking about the weather or a local sports team any particular day. But, as all adolescents happen to share the trait of an overactive, and rather gutter-dwelling, imagination, Suguru included of course, the offer immediately dragged a blushing pink, kicking and screaming, to the still pale skin of the boy's face. Just as the blonde had known it would.

"Se-Seguchi-san what-" unfortunately the stammered statement was interrupted by an arrogant and quite loud sneeze, rendering the teen immobile for a full twelve and a half seconds. Suguru found himself staring blearily at his cousin, and wiped childishly at his eyes to clear his fuzzy vision. Then walked out of the room, while shaking his head as if to clear it, presumedly to the warming care of his shower.

Tohma sighed as he looked at the wet trail of footprints across the wooded floor, the towels resting dejectedly on one end of the tan couch, the pile of music, papers, and books scattered in a haphazard landscape of mountains and hills spanning the majority of surfaces, and the floor, in the rest of the living room... 'Obsessive-compulsive'-san slipped out of his black shoes, leaving them beside the content and thankful door, and took up one of the previously dejected towels, using it to mop up the soaking trail. Then, setting the towel again on the couch with a cringe, he walked away from the cleaning lady's worst nightmare to the conjoined kitchen around the corner.

"At least this room is clean," he stated to the air.

Indeed, the space sparkled and shined, grey linoleum and beige wall tiles included. Tohma had expected dishes in the sink, the table to be covered in clutter. No such luck, it appeared that Suguru had also inherited the family genes for cleanliness, at least when it came to kitchens.

"I wonder what meal Suguru-kun would like?" Tohma pondered, once again to the air, though he was sane enough not to expect an answer. He shrugged out of his black coat, draping it gracefully over one of the two chairs residing at the rectangular table. His matching hat joined the party of inanimate objects as well. The gloves, just in case, stayed to veil his hands.

With a mind full of culinary dreams and desires, the blonde walked to the refrigerator, gently using his weight to pull the white door from its suctioned hold. The chilled air tickled his naturally faded face; Tohma raised an eyebrow at his non-present cousin. The ice box was stark as the Tibetan wilderness. So Tohma closed the door to the right and went see what was behind door number two. Besides a few flakes of ice that landed on his foot, the freezer was bare as well. The ice, free from its native, frozen home melted instantly into a dark dot on Tohma's sock. He shut door number two in disappointment, having found no prize.

One cabinet after the other, the blonde infiltrated Suguru's kitchen, though his findings were in the negatives below satisfactory. The first opening of doors revealed a multitude of glasses, mugs, and other various cups. If a 'multitude' meant: two mugs bearing odd phrases and images, three plastic children's cups, the lids and bendy straws were down three drawers to the right with one lid missing; and two clear juice glasses, one housing a large crack down it's middle; it would have been the right word to use.

The first down, three to go, Tohma opened the second pair. Three plates were stacked neatly to one side with two bowls beside them. The dishes seemed vaguely familiar to the musician, he thought of a memory of him teaching Suguru to eat spaghetti, a food he learned to love from America, for the first time when the boy was seven. One shelf above the eating-ware was a silver pot complete with matching, and surprisingly even fitting, lid. Keeping the pot company was a glass measuring cup, the markings seeming to have been washed away and rewritten in black marker.

With only a few shards of his previously shattered hopes, Tohma risked his sanity when he spread the second to last set of cabinet doors open wide. There was one... entity on these shelves. An asexually reproducing, immortal, and invincible creature: dust.

There was hardly any point to throwing open the last cabinet, but with the reckless eyes of a composed maniac the innards of the final cupboard were brought to light. Contrary to previously conceived notions, Suguru did keep edible substance in his apartment. The last shelves were filled with something so rapid, so mercurial at the sustenance preparation process that it put all restaurants with the label 'fast food' to nano-second-cooking shame. Packages of instant ramen, neatly stacked in equal towers occupied the only fully filled cabinet.

Seguchi stared, then twitched as he glanced up and down at the beef-flavored assortment. All the red packages glared back at him, mocking his rich lifestyle and personal chef.

"_Kami-sama_ (God), if I promise to donate my previous months salary to the next temple I see, will you give me something else to eat besides this... food?"

There was no answer.

"_Akuma-sama_ (Devil), my soul is yours..."

To be continued... (Dun dun dun!)

Ending A/N: Heh... yes, Tohma does dealing with both god and devil so he refers to them with equal reverence (_-sama_...). shrugs I'm tired, tomorrow I'll wake up and blame this all on the ton of sugar I had in my tea the night before, claiming to not remember a thing.


	6. Chapter 3 Part 4

Warning: Shounen-ai/Yaoi, incest, Shota… umm… I've forgotten what else I'm supposed to put here. If you want to know, take a look at the first chapter.

Pairing: Tohma x Suguru…. And to think, in all of the 'Remixes' this pairing didn't even show up… heh heh. innocent I wonder why?

Disclaimer: These boys are the exclusive property of Maki Murakami, not a single one is mine. Neither is the idea of this pairing, it goes to the other stories that were written before this. Even the words belong to the dictionary.

A/N: Ack. I am so, so, so, so, so, very sorry about the long intermission that I unknowingly created. I wish I could say I've been so busy that I did not have the time to write… but I can't. I'm just lazy, and had a bit of a writer's block, I have no idea how it even worked. Unfortunately, (as you can see) I've also started another story. cries I'm just too creative for my own good.

**Chapter Three**

**- The Five Stages of Grief**

**Part Four - Depression**

Suguru was silent as he walked through the door from bathroom to bedroom; tendrils of vaporous steam reaching like pale and ghostly arms to pull him back into the light of the bathroom. The bedroom was dark and inviting, and the desire to stay within the blackness grew.

However, his sense of smell was dominating currently, and the scent of a very familiar dinner alerted his stomach to its previously dormant hunger. He passed through the bedroom and into the illuminated living room, quickly finding his way to the kitchen and the awaiting meal.

"Did the shower help? You look warmer."

The teen raised his head from its previous position of intently studying his bare feet, then nodded faintly in a quiet response.

Tohma was perplexed at his cousin's transformation into a mouse, though was halted in further pondering of the matter by the angry preaching of Suguru's stomach telling the two it was time for dinner. He smiled at his younger cousin and followed him to the table.

"_Itadakimasu_."

Chopsticks were raised and the steaming bowls of ramen were on their way to being empty.

It was quiet, and Tohma found the atmosphere to have become awkward with the lack of sound, "I haven't eaten this type of ramen in a long time."

The statement did not improve the mood; it was determined to inhabit and cause discomfort for the blonde.

All attempts at starting a conversation proved fruitless. Suguru refused to respond with any sentence over five words, or even make eye contact; Tohma didn't know the meal was so interesting, his surely wasn't. It was as if the anger that had previously possessed the teen's body had been washed away by the streaming water and scented soap in the shower. Whatever the fate of the anger, it left behind a lifeless doll sitting at the table, staring at a steaming bowl of noodles.

"I'm finished Seguchi-san," said Suguru after five minutes of carefully choosing which solitary noodles he would eat, and then seven more of soup watching.

"Are you feeling well? You did not eat very much."

"Fine. Just tired," he stood, taking the dishware inhabiting his place at the table with him, and setting the bowl and chopsticks beside the sink, "Thank you for cooking dinner, I will take care of the dishes later, just leave them beside the sink."

Tohma watched as his cousin left the kitchen and his field of vision. There was not even a small grain of doubt in his mind that everything the teen had just said was utter nonsense. With a sigh he pushed his chair away from the table, the legs making dull scraping noises on the plastic flooring. As he had been told, Tohma placed utensils and bowl alongside his cousin's, then walked from the linoleum-tiled kitchen to the wooden-floored living room. No trace of the dark-haired boy in the room inhabited by a mountain range. The blonde's acute sixth sense noticed the bedroom door was partially closed, easily telling anyone who saw that the room was occupied, and off limits, yet the slivered opening invited anyone who cared to sneak through its crevice into the space beyond. Determined to continue playing detective, Tohma softly brushed through the slightly adjacent door, the little amount he had to open it to enter making no noise to alert the occupant within. There was no shout of alarm for him to leave immediately, and the blonde took that as a positive omen, however, that the teen was sitting cross-legged on the bed with his back to the door might have played a hand in that as well.

It didn't matter to Tohma if his cousin realized he had come into the room, he wasn't after stealth; it just happened that he was stealthy in his genes. It was a continual habit that he appeared as if from no where, scaring the pants off of those who knew little of him, and many of the people who would consider him a friend. The blonde swiftly traversed the space from door to bed. If the crunch of metal springs or the sudden dip in the mattress implanted knowledge of his cousin's existence in Suguru's mind, he did not show any sign of knowing so. Tohma came to sit next to the teen, and finally earned a response from him. He turned his head to glance at Tohma. Suguru looked on the edge of waterworks. A fine sheen of tears glazed his brown eyes as he gazed at his cousin beside him on the bed.

"Suguru..." the blonde's sentence ended prematurely, fading to silence as his beaded words were deemed unsatisfactory and inadequate. When he was in control, Tohma was very efficient at dealing with the emotions of others, his ability to comfort tears he caused was close to amazing. Usually he did not have to try very hard to understand and control others, but his cousin wasn't just another puppet; Tohma didn't want to hold the strings. He was not exactly sure of what he wanted, but it was not for Suguru to be a marionette ready for manipulation. He didn't want to know exactly how the teen was going to react to any situation; everything was boring that way, and he was tired of control. Tohma wanted one person to be a mystery to him, to be something fresh and new. Which was currently the case with Suguru, and the blonde loved that about him. How the teen desperately wanted people to see the difference between the two of them, yet he followed in the very footsteps of his elder cousin. Such things confused Tohma to no end when he pondered over them, leaving him dazed as the mighty machine of his mind jammed. Suguru was a Rubik's cube, but one that Tohma, deep down, did not want to solve.

After a moment of thought, he tried once again to string together comforting words, but these too failed to leave his mind and become speech. So the blonde opted for show instead of tell, touching his lips tenderly against their trembling counterparts with the hope that displays of affection would prevent the fall of the pearlescent droplets. He let his tongue lightly brush against Suguru's lips in a feline lick of farewell, ending the kiss just slightly after it had begun. He tasted the familiar hint of salt, knowing that it was not from their previous meal. The tears had finally broken the restraints of cohesion.

Suguru met his cousin's eyes, understanding the silent question in their pale blue expression. In response he hiccupped, breaking the joined gaze in embarrassment as a blush invaded his face. However the one hiccup was not alone, it was merely the signal of the beginning as the teen went into a fit of more violent grief. In addition to the shower gone to torrential downpour of tears, the sixteen-year-old body was wracked by brutal trembling, though the fact that the black hair was still rather damp did not help lessen the shivering.

Tohma, for once, preformed the first thought that entered his mind, not even pausing for a moment to second or third guess himself. Instead of wasting time in a mental debate, he wrapped his arms around his distraught cousin. Gently he brought the dark head to rest on his shoulder, not caring if the boy's tears dampened the designer vest, imported from England, or the silk shirt beneath it. He drew their bodies tightly together, close enough that he could feel each sob that dominated the teen, every broken inhale and uneven exhale.

The display of misery could have lasted minutes or days, though in all likeliness it was the first, considering there had been no raid of the apartment by a certain blonde psychopath at the absence of the keyboardist of Bad Luck. However, since that is beside the focus of this, it will be stated that the two cousins took no notice to the passing of time.

When Tohma spoke again it was after having made sure that the boy in his arms had calmed, "Do you feel better?"

The blonde felt the nodded response, as well as the warm puffs of air traipsing against his chilled skin; now it was his turn to shiver. Suguru's head lay on Tohma's left shoulder, mouth shamefully close to touching the elder man's neck. Though the teen was unsure of how it had come about, it was his cousin who sat cross-legged, while he rested in the basket created by the blonde's thin legs. One of Tohma's hands still soothingly stoked across his back; while his own two appendages were clasped behind the older man, embracing near the slim waist. Both were warm, content enough to stay the way they were and each waiting for the other to be the first to move.

"I'm… I'm sorry, Seguchi-san. For breaking," Hiccup. Suguru spoke softly, much too comfortable to move and make eye contact with his cousin as he spoke, "down like this. That keyboard was just… very special… to me," He paused for a moment and the silence appeared again as he thought about what words use next, "It was my first one… the one you gave me, a-and I should have taken better care of it because… because now it's gone."

If no action was taken by Tohma, the dark-haired teen was going to begin to cry again, "Suguru," he tightened his embrace around the boy, "Don't blame yourself; it's foolish to do that now when nothing could have been done."

"Y-yes," He yawned widely, immensely exhausted both physically and emotionally.

It would have been impossible for the blonde not to notice over-powering yawn by his cousin, the teen's mouth was resting beside his neck after all. Tohma gave up on words, very tired himself, as he usually was, and instead pulled his cousin with him to the head of the bed. After a little rearranging and skillful maneuvering, he had them both settled comfortably once again; satisfactorily sandwiched between the mattress and the light blankets covering the twin sized bed.

Tohma wrapped his arms once again around the waist of the teen in front of him, softly pressing his lips to the pale neck in a makeshift goodnight kiss; it was much too awkward to try and reach the boy's forehead.

"Good night, Seguchi-san."

"Suguru, please call me Tohma."

……. tbc…..

A/N Final: Despite popular belief… this actually is going somewhere, don't worry… or maybe you should worry. Review or I'll take even longer to finish the last part of this chapter!


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